The Social Implications Of "The Singularity Moment"

Hi Straggler,I found this paper that provided these definitions:

quote:

---

Technology transfer is a two-way interaction. Host as well as supplier nations have critical stakes in technology transfer. Technology adoption is the process by which various features of technology, which is the subject of transfer, are suitably modified keeping in view the needs of the buyers. Technology adaptation is a phase that takes place after a technology has been adopted and put to use. Technology is said to be absorbed if it is fully understood, so that the transferee is able to further optimize, upgrade, and modify the technology on its own.

---

bold added for emphasisI'm not sure that's what crash is typing about, but its something to work with.

Well, the rate of technological advancement is increasing, so it seems obvious, to me at least, that the advancement will outgrow the absorption.In Message 7, crash wrote:

quote:

---

...the notion that the rate of technological change will increase past our ability to culturally absorb the changes is clearly true.

---

Theo just replied with his annoying standard: "Ya got any evidence for that assertion?" Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

Yeah, and its only going to get worse. Its about the culture absorbing the technology, not the individuals of that culture.Every American does not have to understad how they work, to say that America absorbed atomic bombs. It might not be exact, and the article was about one culture giving technology to another, as opposed to the development of the technology, but I think its along the right track.Its about mainstream utilization of the technology rather than it simply having been invented but just sitting on a shelf (so to speak).We learned about it a bit in college, that you have to develop technology slow enough for people to buy it so that further advancements can get funded.You don't just jump from a $100 processor to a $10,000 one that is a billion times faster because the culture won't absorb it because nobody will go buy it because it costs too much.Another thing that comes to mind, and this might be totally differet, but think about just after firearms got invented and the soldier would just stand in rows across a field firing at each other. The technology was better than their strategies and they weren't fully utilizing guns yet. Ya know what I mean?SO if a super-duper gun was invented tomorrow, its conceivable that it could be too advanced for us to absorb it. What do you think?Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

No, I don't think the singularity is simply the existence of unabsorbed technologies. So that you will be less annoying. Its a simple deduction from the fact that if the *rate* of technological advancement only increases, then our culture's ability to absorb it will keep falling farther and farther behind.Absorption has to lag behind advancement, obviously, so if the *rate* of advancement keeps increasing then eventually absorption will just get left in the dust.

I thought crashes first post was clear:

quote:

---

Ray Kurzwiels' pretty much predicting science fiction, but the notion that the rate of technological change will increase past our ability to culturally absorb the changes is clearly true. The rate of technological change has never decreased throughout human history. The people who are predicting that it will are the ones making predictions utterly at odds with history, not Kurzweil.

​

Does that mean AI, teleportation, living forever in virtual worlds? Who knows? The point of the "singularity" is that it's the point at which technological change is happening so fast the results can't be predicted.

​

And it just can't be argued that that is {not} going to someday be the case.

---

Although I think he missed placing that NOT that I added at the end and I added the bold. Because the *rate* of avancement is increasing, i.e. technology is accelerating, then the displacement between advancement and absorption will keep growing, i.e. get "worse". Essentially its when that displacement spirals out of control, or as crash put it: the results of it can't be predicted. Maybe it is. No, not everybody has to understand it for it to be absorbed.Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

Its the nature of exponential growth, the further along you get the more it grows. We're about 200 years past the Industrial Revolution and the last 50 years has had a lot more advancement than the previous 150. The next 50 years should be even more than that. Yes. Its no big deal, really. Nothing bad is going to happen if you don't We're talking about science fiction in the COFFEE HOUSE FORUM!

Well, the OP brings up "super-intelligent cyborgs" so we are talkin' SciFi, but the principle behind it, that technological advancement outruns cultures' abilities to absorb them, is something that can be discussed as non-fiction. Oh, EvC has many forums, some of which pertain to religion and beliefs. You're wrong to think that every assertion here requires evidence. I would rather be someone who actually contributes to discussions with something interesting to read. Yeah, but any asshat can scan through threads looking for unsubstantiated claims and respond with: "Ya got any evidence for that assertion?"Its one thing to seek new information for something that interests you, but to just take potshots from the sidelines at everything unsupported is just annoyingly junking up the threads. You can just ignore people...